


Adventures in T-Shirt Printing and Wrestling

by Black_and_Grey



Category: Professional Wrestling
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 06:11:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12698985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_and_Grey/pseuds/Black_and_Grey
Summary: Lily Novak, experiencing a quarter life crisis, moves to Chicago to go back to school. A lifelong wrestling fan, she somehow lands a job working at the custom apparel store famous for their connection to independent wrestling. The job brings new friends, new experiences and eventually leads to her falling in love with the local indy scene.





	Adventures in T-Shirt Printing and Wrestling

**Author's Note:**

> This is 1000% the result of me being over-worked, stressed out and needing some sort of creative outlet. I'm old enough that these type of stories used to be called "Mary Sues". I don't know if that's still the term or not, but basically it's me fantasy booking a woman's life in a way I know a lot of us would kill to experience. I've done my best with making Lily as believable and normal as possible. And I've based my characterization of the wrestlers mentioned off of what I've seen of their work. It's all headcanon, folks. All of the normal disclaimers apply. Lord knows I am not profiting off of this. 
> 
> Updates will be posted on an irregular basis. 
> 
> Enjoy my excuse to write fluffy ass scenes involving Colt Cabana.

Lily Novak was hovering in an alley, pacing slightly. She kept trying to push her dyed, ice blonde hair behind her ears but the wind was working steadily against her. God, she wished that she still smoked cigarettes. Glancing at her phone for the 8th time in two minutes, she cursed herself for leaving her house so early. Today was her first day on the job working at One Hour Tees and in her anxious state she arrived 45 minutes early.

She had only been living back in Chicago for about 3 months. Originally from Milwaukee, Lily decided at 19 that she was shipping out to Chicago to live the real big city life. She barely lasted 9 months before moving back. She still visited Chi-town at least once a year because she loved it. Then, about 6 months ago, Lily had a bit of a quarter life crisis. She decided to go back to school and finish her degree and she wanted to do it in a Chicago. So, at 33, she packed what little belongings she had and moved into a little studio apartment in the Wicker Park neighborhood.

Lily looked again at her phone. She still had 38 minutes before the start of her shift. She weighed her options. She could walk a block down and get a nice hot coffee. Maybe even a bagel with fruit. Have a nice balanced breakfast and start the day off right. Or, she could go ahead and head in and get acclimated before work. Learn where everything is. Maybe peep out a locker or somewhere to store her stuff. The problem with going in now was that she didn't want to seem overzealous. See, Lily had a tendency to get a little manic over the things she enjoyed. Like snow, penguins, tattoos, and pineapple for example. At the top of her list was pro wrestling. And One Hour Tees was the custom printing store for many wrestlers' merchandise. Which meant that often those wrestlers stop by the shop. Which meant that Lily would have to reign in her enthusiasm in order to a.) remain composed while working and b.) remain chill in the eyes of her new coworkers.

"Fuck it," Lily said and began walking out of the alley in the direction of Toast Cafe.

After eating her breakfast a lot quicker than she probably should have, she finally steeled her nerves and walked into the front door, determined to make the best impression and, hopefully, a few new friends.

 

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Lily was kicking her shoes off before she even shut the door to her apartment. Her first day had been long but pleasant. No fuckups. No exciting visitors. No making an ass of herself. She exchanged numbers with another girl that worked there. She even made the owner, Ryan, laugh a few times. Overall, she chalked it up as a win.

Throwing her keys and phone on the coffee table, Lily immediately started tearing her clothes off in order to get in her pajamas. If it was socially acceptable, she would wear pajamas all day, every day. She threw he bra somewhere near the recliner, wanting that evil thing as far from her as possible. Soon she was in one of her old black tank tops, boobs swinging free (like god intended) and rocking an oversized pair of green sweatpants while cooking gnocchi soup in an old hand me down crockpot.

The rest of the evening was spent laying on her couch, binge watching Adam Ruins Everything alternating between texting her new coworker Kat and playing Sudoku on her phone.

She went to bed by 2am and slept harder than she had in weeks.

 

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Lily finally met her first wrestler when Mike Elgin stopped in the shop about three weeks later. She had been puttering around in the employee break room/kitchen, waiting for her sensible lean pocket to cook when her boss Ryan came back followed by Elgin. Of course, she knew who he was; she had seen his work in Japan as well as PWG. What she didn't know is the he often worked for the AAW promotion right there in Chicago.

"Mike, this is Lily. She's the rookie around here," Ryan said.

Lily felt the beginnings of a giggle fit about to start. She breathed deeply through her nose. "Hey what's up man? I'm a fan. Nice to meet you," she said, as nonchalantly as possible.

Mike's bearded face broke out into a smile. "Thanks. Nice to meet you too. Nice shirt!" He said before he and Ryan continued on to his office.

Once out of ear shot, Lily opened the fridge door and knelt down to peer in it. In reality, she was hiding her smile, sharing it only with the half-empty bottle of ketchup and 12 pack of Monster energy drinks. Big Mike Elgin liked her shirt. Who knew he was an Asuka fan?

 

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Kat, the receptionist, was quickly becoming her best friend in the city. Lily of course had many close friends, but they all were back in Milwaukee. Lily was naturally an introvert and didn't mind having only herself for company but sometimes life is just better when you can share it with someone else.

Kat was becoming that person.

It didn't hurt that Kat found Lily to be hilarious. That was always a huge ego boost. Kat was also the type of person to compliment people at least once a day, yet she was notorious for being a bit of a well-meaning asshole. Like she would say your hair looks good and then turn around and start roasting you about your shoes. It was all in fun though, never malicious. Kat was also really easy to talk to and seemed to be pretty trustworthy. She was, however, a little bit on the nosey side.

"So, you banging anybody?" Kat asked one day about 4 weeks into Lily's tenure at the shop.

Lily almost choked on her own spit. She cleared her throat before answering. "Uh. Not currently. Why?"

"Just curious," Kat shrugged. "You've been in town for like 4 months now right? Just figured that's enough time to have found yourself a man."

"Um, Well to be honest...that's not a priority..."

"What is your priority then?"

Lily thought a bit before answering. "Doing well in school. Sleeping. Making enough money to pay my rent. Mediterranean food. Keeping caught up on my DVR. In that order."

Kat nodded her head. "I feel you, girl. I feel you."

What Kat didn't realize is that she had made Lily think about her lack of a love life. Lily had never really been swimming in potential suitors in the past, but there had been a handful of old boyfriends. Her last one was a guy named Sean who was nice but wanted kids as soon as possible. Lily, however, was not down for that. At all. They broke up after 3 months. That was 4 years ago.

Huh. Maybe she did need to get back out there. Hell, she hadn't even checked her OK Cupid or Tinder profiles since she moved. Meh. She would get to it eventually. Maybe after the semester started. Which reminded her that her first class back was coming up fast. She had moved way before she actually started classes in order to get settled and to find a job that would both pay well and offer flexible scheduling. She had less than 7 weeks left the first day. It was both too far and too close at the same time.

Oh well. Lily had to survive the Christmas season first before worrying about school.

 

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That next week Lily got to meet Jeff Cobb, Zack Saber Jr. and Keith Lee. She even went out to dinner with Kat and meet some new people who all were in the wrestling circle in one way or another. Kat introduced her to Marty DeRosa and Sarah Shockey, two local comedians who ran a comedy podcast about wrestling and also occasionally worked for the local AAW promotion.

She was really starting to love her job.


End file.
